


of adventures and goodbyes (and once about the family they left behind).

by noifsandsorbees



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noifsandsorbees/pseuds/noifsandsorbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Charlie Scully is who fans thought he was, until he couldn't be anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of adventures and goodbyes (and once about the family they left behind).

**Author's Note:**

> bill 1960 // melissa 1962 // dana 1964 // charlie 1968

**1968.**  
She’s six years old when her mother places her brother in her arms, small and squirmy, chubby and soft. She holds his head with one hand just like the nurse showed her and shoos away her little sister with the other. She ignores Bill whining that she needs to share, that it’s his brother too. 

Instead she just holds him still, in awe that he doesn’t cry, doesn’t scream, just dreamily gazes up at her. Bill never shared Dana when she was this tiny, not that Melissa was old enough to hold her anyway, but he barely broke his protective streak even as Dana learned to crawl and walk and draw out her letters. He struck his claim on Dana, but this brother is _hers._

 **1973.**  
Charlie’s barely five the first time Melissa steals him away, picking him up even though he’s more than half her size, and running away from the pier. Their parents are packing a rented boat up for a day at sea and she disappears with nothing more than a backpack of ice cream pops, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and juice boxes, antsy for adventure and too old for it to be with the family. 

She lets him down once they’ve reached the edge of the beach and he follows on excited little legs. They run until they reach the playground at the end of the beach and they hide in the covered room up top, a million miles from the ground, a long, twisty slide away from the world. 

She tucks her sweatshirt around him when his body is begging for a nap and she shushes her parents screaming their names from below, panic from the one hour of separation wringing desperation into their mother’s voice. They run home with chocolate stained cheeks and their first taste of independence fluttering in their hearts. 

**1978.**  
Melissa teaches him about the stars and interpreting his dreams, about the countries they’ll see together one day and about how infinitely big the world is. She sneaks him into her and Dana’s room in the middle of the night, the three of them telling ghost stories around a campfire of flashlights until the sun peeks through. 

She watches the way her younger siblings’ eyes meet under the tall blankets, joy dancing between them like she has given them a moment that’s theirs and theirs alone. They are united, more than anything, by the whimsical moments she creates, the secrets they can smile about as they fold hospital corners in their sheets each morning. 

**1982.**  
She’s been away at college for two years when she sneaks back home, shaking Dana awake and telling her to get dressed before doing the same to Charlie. The three of them pile into her car and speed down to the beach, to a bonfire and to both of their first sips of cheap vodka.

Melissa dances around the fire and kisses a boy with long blonde hair; she hugs Dana and pulls Charlie into the ocean, drunkenly tells him that college isn’t for her, that today they are reborn to a new life, one free of social woes. She asks him to come along, to run away with her to Oregon, to New York, to wherever their one tank of gas can take them, and he laughs, clinging to her side until Bill Jr. shows up and shoves them into the backseat of his car.

 **1993.**  
He calls her years later, when it’s his turn to lose his grasp on college. It’s round two and he still hasn’t graduated, he’s twenty four and frustrated, his father’s disappointment ringing in his ears. He calls her and asks her to take him away, to run like she offered all those years ago.

She quits her job in the middle of a shift, throws a suitcase in her trunk and picks him up. They take on California at 90 miles per hour with the windows down.

 **1994.**  
He comes to Maryland to send his father out to sea one last time, a sight far more familiar than welcoming him home. Charlie sleeps on Dana’s couch and she wakes him in the middle of the night, making him sit up so she can lean against him, so they can stifle their tears into each other’s shoulders.

“I don’t know what to do now,” he whispers. “I wasn’t even that close to him. I don’t know what I’d do if it was mom. If was you.”

“If it was Melissa,” Dana finishes, and they both feel like children once again. He clings to her harder. 

**1995.**  
He stands away from his family at her funeral, tears his hand from Maggie and Dana’s desperate grabs. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t cry, doesn’t betray any real emotion. But he feels his blood run cold, his mouth set as if he will never smile again because the people in front of him let this happen. He says goodbye to her, and then he leaves. 

**2016.**  
Mulder stands when she’s ready, when a nod against his side and her straightening spine tell him to let go. He lifts himself, waiting as Scully toes off her shoes and peels down her stockings. He follows, his socks and shoes dropped messily next to her perfectly aligned ones. She takes his hand and her mother, and they walk down to the shore, the rocks a welcomed pain on the soles of their feet. 

Scully wades into the frozen water, until the bottom of her skirt is wet and heavy, and then looks back for him; he joins her, his suit soaked to the knees, and waits for her to say her goodbyes. But she’s not ready, not with twenty five cents of unfinished business around her neck. 

“He blamed us,” Scully starts, continuing her confessions meant only for him. “He blamed me for Melissa. Then blamed Mom for forgiving me. Blamed Bill by association. We took her away from him, so he left and didn’t come back.”

He pulls her against his chest and her choked sobs fall into his shirt. 

“I don’t think he still hates us for it, but he thinks it’s too late. He blames himself instead of me for tearing apart the family.”

“Scully,” he finally breathes, his first word in hours; she looks off to sea, only having half heard him. “We don’t have much family left. There’s nothing we can do about William, not anymore, but how about we start fixing what we can?”

With shaking hands, she opens the urn and sends out a silent prayer that her mother finds Ahab in the sea, that they’ll float with each other through eternity. Today is a day for reconnection and reunion, for home and family. 

She seals her lips against his and thinks of beaches and playgrounds, of pillow forts and dusty California roads. She thinks of everywhere he was taught to run and how he has always been found. 

He’s suddenly the most important impossibility that Mulder has made her believe.


End file.
